2007 Award Winner and Laureates

Best Innovator Award Belgium 2007 Winner: GSK Biologicals



"Unparalleled growth fueled by new products and supported by innovative technologies"
GSK Biologicals, based in Brabant Wallon, is in charge of the research, development and production of vaccines within the international group GlaxoSmithKline. The company defined a Strategic Innovation Map in order to organize and prioritize innovation efforts on a global scale, and then used a strategy tour to ensure that this vision and approach was communicated to the entire organization. The organization, culture and processes were then fully aligned to this strategy to ensure its efficient and effective implementation. As a result, GSK Biologicals is now experiencing unparalleled growth based on a continuous and constantly-growing flow of new products. The company has doubled the number of its employees over the last four years while remaining very profitable throughout this period, and the vaccine division now receives more than 30 percent of the total group’s investments. They are not only recognized externally as the innovation leader in their industry. Internal recognition is also benefiting the company as the entire GSK Group will adopt GSK Biological’s R&D organization model.


Best Innovator Award Belgium 2007 Laureate for Innovation Strategy and Processes: Alcatel-Lucent Bell

“We constantly innovate our innovation processes"
Alcatel-Lucent Bell’s management made innovation a top priority in 2002. The company took a holistic approach to innovation management and defined their innovation strategy in seven dimensions covering areas such as strategy, culture, process and resources, and then developed initiatives for each. Although several initiatives were fruitful, others proved more difficult – especially those aimed at identifying and developing ideas. As a result, Alcatel-Lucent Bell decided to innovate their innovation processes to overcome these challenges. Entrepreneurial boot camps were introduced to increase the quality of ideas and the corresponding business plans. Moreover, a dedicated process was developed for breakthrough innovations to ensure that both evolutionary and revolutionary innovations could be successfully developed and launched. As a consequence of this in-depth approach, Alcatel-Lucent Bell now stimulates entrepreneurship on a continuous basis.


Best Innovator Award Belgium 2007 Finalists:


Roularta Publishing

Several years ago, Roularta Publishing had the innovative vision to automate all pre-media processes including those which nobody thought could be automated. In doing so, Roularta Publishing purposely chose to integrate innovation management into its day-to-day operations rather than introduce separate structures and processes that would slow down the innovation process. To ensure a continuous stream of new, practical and applicable ideas for the benefit of both clients and suppliers, Roularta Publishing now plays an active role in various networks. The result is efficiency improvement and drastically reduced lead times. By being ‘first movers’, the company set the standard of pre-media interfaces with clients and suppliers worldwide.


Solvay Specialty Polymers

This company successfully communicated and deployed a 5-year innovation plan with specific targets and related scorecards. All executives now have individual innovation targets, and the internal awards that have been organized for several years running not only underline the importance of innovation within the company, they also sustain the motivation of leadership positions throughout the firm. Internal innovation is supported and enriched by external partnerships and international research networks, and a network of Innovation Champions identifies and disseminates best practices in innovation management across the organization. As a result, Solvay Specialty Polymers are now recognized as innovation leaders in the area of advanced polymers, with up to 50% of revenues coming from products which are less than five years old.


Total Belgium

Empowerment underlies this company’s innovation management approach: they give people the room they need to innovate. The idea generation and selection process is clearly structured and involves customers. Continuous communication and reporting on innovation ensures the involvement of all employees, and innovativeness is celebrated through the firm’s InnovA awards. Innovation target profiles are even used when recruiting employees, and systematic job rotation further stimulates innovation. As a result, Total Belgium recently realized several successful product introductions such as Excellium and the Diplomatic Card. They therefore play an exemplary role for both idea generation and the successful market launches of innovative products and services developed in Belgium and at a Total group level.